Sunday, April 17, 2011

I'm Dyeing

Instead of leaving on our big trip today, I'm going to be climbing into my own warm bed here in Washington tonight. Because, as usual, we are having to get past a few road blocks before we can leave.

But first, let me show you how we dyed our Easter eggs. You probably know that we try really hard to avoid food dyes. What we've suspected for years is finally starting to be covered by the mainstream media. Food dyes might not be safe. I've read a number of recent articles (here and here) that call into question the safety of food dyes and the possible reactions that some people have to the dyes used in certain foods.

Anyway, I am always trying to live as naturally as possible, which is pretty tough these days. But we have a lot of fun finding ways to make it work.For dyeing our Easter eggs, we just used things we had on hand in our house. I have used berries as a food dye before, but we didn't have any this week. No pink eggs this year. We did have some turmeric (a spice) and a head of red cabbage. Perfect.I poured 4 cups of water, 1 Tbsp of vinegar, 1 Tbsp of salt, and about 6 Tbsp of turmeric into a pot. I let it simmer until it was mixed pretty well. Then I turned off the heat and the kids added the eggs. We let them soak for a couple of hours.

I chopped up the head of cabbage and added it to a pot of 4 cups of water, 1 Tbsp of vinegar, and 1 Tbsp of salt. I let this simmer for about 30 minutes and then we turned off the heat. The kids added the eggs and we decided to leave the cabbage in the pot instead of straining it. We were wondering what the eggs would look like and were pleasantly surprised with some neat designs on our eggs!

And then we took the eggs and had a yummy lunch the next day. It was great!

Anyway, we are still headed to the east coast this week. When? I don't know. It wouldn't be my life if everything wasn't complicated.

We picked up the camper from the storage lot and had some issues that had to be fixed before we could leave. Nothing major, but still things that had to be done before the camper could be used. (Cleaning, fixing a water valve, replacing a light fixture, etc.)

Just after I'd sent an email to my family letting them know about the potential delay, I got a phone call. It was the surgery scheduler from the hospital in Georgia. One of the surgeons that is operating on me next month just had a death in his family and had to cancel the surgery. They offered to reschedule, but it changed everything. In the end, I did schedule the surgery for a week later than originally planned. Because of the changes, the second surgeon isn't going to do my ear surgery in Georgia. I'll have to have it done here in Washington instead.

I will have my salivary gland removed in Georgia, which is great. The bad part is that I'll have to have 3 more surgeries for my ears when I get back to Washington. And I'll likely be driving from Georgia to Virginia by myself after the gland removal surgery. I bought my mom a plane ticket to Georgia so that she could come to be with my kids and then help me drive up to Virginia after the surgery. But because of the change in the surgery date, I won't be able to have her there. I tried calling the airline and they told me I'll have to buy a new plane ticket. Considering that the cost of gas is already nearly $4.00/gallon right now, I'm not exactly jumping at the chance to pay for another plane ticket (for the same exact flight, same ticket fare, just a different date.) I'm pretty certain that I'll be just fine to drive anyway, so I'm not too worried. I might just drive to my friend's house in North Carolina and invade her house for a stop along the way.

Yesterday we celebrated the girls' birthday a little bit early and we spent today getting the camper ready for the road. In the next couple of days, we'll be setting off for Georgia. Again. I never thought I'd be saying that.

Before we leave I will have to share some birthday pictures and a special post about homebirth. It's going to be a fun week!

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About Me

I'm a Christian mom, Army wife, and doula. I've had 6 children in 5 years including not one, but two, sets of identical twins. I'm an advocate for homebirth and I gave birth to my twin girls on the floor of my own bedroom. (View my homebirth story here. ) I just survived a long deployment and a cross-country move with sanity mostly intact.